Big oil companies are engaging in "greenwashing" by announcing environmental projects to investors while privately emphasizing their ability to keep producing fossil fuels, according to a report released by the House Committee on Oversight and Reform.
A Sept. 15 hearing for the report's release featured strongly opposing views from either side of the aisle. Democrats, who control the committee as the majority party, emphasized the size of oil and gas company profits in 2022 and compared those numbers to smaller investments in emission reductions as evidence of the industry's lack of effort. Republican committee members said that Democratic policies have led to the current high oil and natural gas prices and that the hearing was another battle in what they called a war on natural gas.
"Contrary to what their pledges imply, fossil fuel companies have not organized their businesses around becoming low-emissions, renewable energy companies," the committee's report on climate change efforts in the oil and gas industry said. "They are devoted to a long-term fossil fuel future."
Quoting from internal company documents, the House report said major oil and gas producers — BP PLC, Shell PLC, Exxon Mobil Corp., Chevron Corp. and ConocoPhillips — have tried to create the impression they are taking steps to reduce emissions "without actually doing so."
"So, Exxon and Chevron claim they support the Paris agreement [on climate change], but they won't commit to advocating for it or working for it," committee chairwoman Rep. Carolyn Maloney, D-N.Y., said at the hearing. "It's long past due for Big Oil to end its deception and commit to real action to reduce its emissions."
The chief executives and board members of the supermajor oil companies were invited to testify at the hearing but declined to appear.
"These allegations are only another attempt to diminish the progress the industry has made in recent years," Megan Bloomgren, senior vice president of communications for the American Petroleum Institute, said in a statement. "API is working with policymakers on both sides of the aisle to address the climate challenge through industry action and effective government policies, and our member companies continue to innovate and invest in research and best practices to further reduce [greenhouse gas] emissions."
Industry representatives said plans to produce lower-carbon fuels and rely on carbon capture technologies to collect and store surplus carbon mark a cautious, middle-of-the-road approach that will ease the world into a lower-emissions regime.
Critics say the oil majors are relying too much on technological advances that have not yet been proved to work at scale, particularly in the case of carbon capture and storage.
"BP, for example, vowed to reduce investments in fossil fuels, but actually increased them," Raya Salter, the founder and executive director of the Energy Justice Law and Policy Center, said. "Exxon Mobil has a goal to reach net-zero emissions by 2050, but increased its production by 4% in the first quarter of 2022. ... They have no intention of wavering from selling their core product, which is fossil fuels."
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